‘Ana with one en?’
She gave him a very small smile and dimpled slightly. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘Mexican?’
‘Naturally.’ She hesitated and then asked him: ‘You are a gringo, but you speak my language as if it were your own.’
‘It is possible, though I am never sure, that my mother was a Mexican lady. It depended on how drunk my father was when he told the story. At other times, he boasted that she was a Cheyenne princess.’
‘And which would you prefer?’
‘Beggars can’t be choosers. I’d just plumb for certainty.’
They laughed softly together and, for some reason beyond his understanding, he was pleased that they could.
Their meal was finished and they went to sit in the shade of the porch outside. The long dry trail stretched to right and left of them, seemingly on to eternity either way. The sky was a breathless blue arc above them. The heat and the glare seemed to be blinding. The river was so low that they could not see the water in it.
‘And your name,’ she asked, ‘that you have failed to tell me?’
What was it, he asked himself, that had brought a sudden and inexplicable sense of intimacy and familiarity between himself and this woman?
‘My name,’ he said, ‘is Remington McAllister. One titter on your part and this conversation ends.’
‘It is a beautiful name,’ she told him, ‘and I have heard it before. The McAllister. Often I heard my father and my grandfather speak of a man by that name.’
‘Chad McAllister?’
She brightened. ‘That was it.’
‘My old man. Did they know him?’
‘Surely. My grandfather was an associate of the Bents. He hunted with your father for the beaver in the old days.’
‘Well I’ll be goddammed,’ McAllister declared in English. She laughed and said: ‘You Americans and your goddams!’ McAllister wondered if he was related in any way to this woman. ‘What was your father’s name?’
‘Chavez, Emiliano Chavez.’
‘I knew him when I was a boy,’ he told her. ‘A fine man.’
‘Now dead,’ she said. ‘He had many enemies and one day he met too many of them in one place at the same time.’ She laid a hand on his arm and he found contact with her disturbing. ‘I have a request to make to you.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘This man you hunt has killed my man,’ she said. ‘Is it too much to ask that you take me with you when you hunt him?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Too much.’
‘It is my right.’
‘It’s my right also to say no.’
‘Yet you do not strike me as an unkind man.’ She leaned forward so that she could see into his face. He had the uneasy feeling that those eyes would dominate a man, had already done so on many occasions and she was remembering them now. ‘I have more right than you, when you think about it. This man has done nothing against you.’
‘He has now,’ said McAllister indignantly. ‘Ma’am, you don’t have an idea. That man has done enough to me to call for some right drastic action. You’re getting at me, ma’am. If I take you along, you’re going to be getting at me mile after mile. A man don’t relish that idea a-tall.’ He realized that he had reverted to speaking in English.
‘It is settled,’ she announced. ‘I shall come.’
‘It is settled, you do not. And let that be the end of it.’
She sat upright and looked at the dancing horizon. He glanced sideways at her, thinking her offended, but she turned her head quickly and smiled at him, her eyes friendly for the first time. ‘You do not mean to be offensive,’ she said. ‘It is not your nature speaking, only your raising.’
At the tail-end of the afternoon he had the urge to be on the trail. He decided that he would use the comparatively cool hours before full dark to press on after the fugitive. He had tried to buy a spare horse from Fairbrother, but the station man refused. ‘You couldn’t buy one of my horses for one hundred dollars and that’s flat.’ To which McAllister replied: ‘I wouldn’t pay one hundred dollars for one of those plugs and that’s flatter still.’ He did, however, manage to buy an old rifle from the man. Before he mounted to ride, he told the girl: ‘I don’t have all the money in the world, ma’am, but I’ll split fifty-fifty with you.’ He gave her twenty-five dollars, which was literally half of what he carried.
She said: ‘That’s generous of you, McAllister. I would like to refuse, but I cannot. Thank you for all you have done. I hope we meet again some time.’
‘That’s mutual, ma’am.’ McAllister did not offer his hand, because he knew how he reacted to the girl’s touch. But she was not having that. She took his hand in both of hers. ‘You may think me ungrateful, but I’m not.’
He released himself and stepped into the saddle. As usual the canelo wanted to go. She bunched her muscles and he had to hold her in tightly. ‘I hope you make out, ma’am,’ he called out, then he allowed Sally her head and she ran for a mile before she quietened down and reduced her pace to a hammering trot. McAllister looked back and saw the girl standing in front of the station. She raised a hand to him and he returned the gesture. He could still feel the touch of her hands on his.
When he picked up the quarry’s tracks he could see plainly the kind of pace he was hitting. McAllister cursed. He had to face the fact that the mule was a traveler and would keep a hard trot up all day. His canelo was a good horse, none better, and she would run all day on a handful of grass, but she could not compete with a man riding animals change and change-about. But McAllister reckoned he would try, though he hated the thought of ruining such a good mare for the sake of catching scum like that one. He would see. Maybe chance would play a hand in this game, as it had so often in the past.
By nightfall McAllister knew from the tracks he was following that his quarry had been heading for the mountains and was most likely camped in them right now. Maybe he was even on a high point with a glass pointed right at McAllister.
Because he wanted to use every scrap of daylight to full advantage McAllister did not halt until dark. He hated going into camp in dark and he was pretty foul-tempered with himself. He did not even bother to build a fire and treat himself to hot coffee, just chewed on some sandwiches the woman at the station had made for him. At a price. He washed the food down with some water from his canteen and rolled in his blankets.
The following morning when he woke an hour before dawn he was in no better temper. He made no other preparation to travel than to wash out his mouth with water and spit. He anticipated the man’s line of march and rode until dawn when he circled and cut his sign again. By noon he was deep in the foothills. When he stopped to build a fire and spoil himself with hot coffee, he looked back and saw that there was somebody on his back-trail. A whisp of dust, no more, but he knew that the dust was kicked up by a fast-travelling horse. For one crazy moment he thought it might be the girl, but he dismissed the thought. Where would she get a horse? She certainly was not going to get one from Fairbrother with twenty-five dollars.
The thought that came and stayed with him was that one of the men at the way station thought him a bounty hunter and was following him up for a chance at the bounty himself. It would not be the first time such a thing had happened. McAllister considered stopping and ambushing the follower, but he thrust the idea aside as a time-waster. Time was essential now. He would push on and let whoever was back there catch him up. He would make sure that he rode with his eyes on his back-trail though. He did not fancy a bullet in the back.
By late afternoon he was into the mountains proper and, when he reached a vantage point from which he could inspect almost the whole trail he had followed since noon, he could see no sign of movement. Maybe the rider had been there by chance and had not been following McAllister. Maybe.
Deciding to make camp before dark tonight and to cook himself a decent meal, he found himself a good spot amongst trees, not too far from a rushing mountain torrent. The stew
had reached the point where its aroma was playing hell with his stomach juices when he heard himself hailed—‘Hello the camp.’
McAllister stood up, contemplating his getting only half the stew he thought due to him and swore. He called out: ‘Come ahead, Mrs Sullivan.’
The girl walked into view, leading a horse. She had changed her wide and voluminous skirts for men’s pants, which were shocking and wholly delightful to see. They showed off her fine figure and her long, slender and shapely legs to devastating advantage. She looked infuriatingly confident and afraid of nothing. It was a bad sign and McAllister did not like it. Not only was he going to lose some of his stew, but his monk-like existence, the kind which he favored on the trail, was going to be sadly upset. The situation appeared to him faintly obscene—him following a killer and her recently made a widow by the same man.
Her attention was first taken by the smell of the stew. ‘That smells wonderful. Don’t tell me you can cook too.’
‘Don’t change the subject,’ he said.
‘What subject?’
‘The subject of what the hell you’re doing here.’
‘You wanted a horse—so I brought it.’
‘A likely story. I wanted the horse, not a horse with a girl forking it. Any road, how come you could buy a horse when I couldn’t?’
‘I had more money.’ He found that he was grinding his teeth. He grinned like a death’s head in his rage. ‘With your twenty-five dollars I had over one hundred and twenty, which that odious man accepted. We clinched the deal when he agreed to throw the gear in.’
‘Has it occurred to you that I have a very difficult chore ahead of me, a chore in which I shall no doubt have to risk my life, and that you will only make matters more difficult for me?’
She smiled sweetly. ‘Has it occurred to you that I might make matters very much easier for you? But we’re wasting time, good eating time. I can’t wait to get at what’s in that pot.’
He sat down, for the moment utterly defeated. ‘If I don’t get talked to death,’ he sighed, ‘I shall without doubt be starved to death.’
‘But,’ she said, sitting down beside him and laying a hand on his arm, ‘now you have a friend.’
He looked at her and saw to his astonishment that she was entirely serious. He found himself patting that hand and remembering that she had lost her man so short a time before. Her reason must be wandering a little. God forbid that he should take advantage of a woman while her mind was so unsettled. It was like winning a fight by a foul.
‘I can’t send you back, so I shall have to put up with you.’ She smiled. ‘That is not the most gracious acceptance I have ever had. But I am satisfied. Now, let’s eat.’
Six
The man and the girl stood on the shoulders of the world and looked east. For as far as they could see in the clear mountain air the sierras rolled and thrust their great heads to the sky, a world so massive that their minds reeled and refused to accept it. The wind pushed at them so they had to lean into it to maintain their balance. Below them light clouds with ghostly fingers played among the peaks. Every man, McAllister thought, should come up here once in a while and feel small. He wondered how the man they hunted felt when he looked down on this. Maybe it didn’t affect him at all. You would not be surprised if a man who had done what he had done was incapable of feeling.
The girl’s hand slipped into his, just as a child’s might. ‘I never saw anything like it, McAllister.’
‘There’s times,’ he replied, ‘when I think there can’t be anything like it.’
Together, they walked back to the horses. Neither of them spoke, for it was one of those times when words are conspicuously inadequate. They mounted in silence and rode on, picking their way slowly through the rocks, Sally going demurely, the girl’s old gelding making hard labor of it. It was not until an hour had passed and they started down a winding trail along the more or less flat floor of a valley that Ana brought her horse alongside McAllister’s.
‘McAllister, do you have any idea where this man is going?’
‘I don’t know where he’s going. He’s trying to make me believe he’s headed back to the place he came from.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Black Horse.’
‘Is that your town?’
‘Yes, ma’am. It’s my town.’
‘How much your town?’
‘I don’t own any part of it. But I have friends in it.’
‘Good friends?’
‘They’re the only kind I claim.’
The valley led them to a pass that looked down into a great green basin in the mountains. The girl could have believed that another world had fallen out of the sky and struck the earth here millions of years ago. The place was like an immense amphitheater, so massive that she thought they could not ride across it in a week.
‘This man we’re following—does he have a name?’
‘Several.’
‘You say he wants you to believe that he has gone back to Black Horse. But he must know that you know he wouldn’t do that.’
McAllister smiled. ‘He and I are both good at this game. We’ve done it before many times. It’s all bluff and double bluff. Sometimes we get caught up in the excitement of it all and we play treble-bluff. Which brings you back to the idea you first thought of. If our quarry looks like he’s heading back to Black Horse, bluff means that he’s maybe down there in the basin, waiting for us. You see why I didn’t want you along?’
‘I see. But you’re not sure. I have a feeling you think he really is headed for Black Horse.’
‘Wrong. I’m just bearing all the possibilities in mind. I think the likely one is that for the last two weeks he has been jockeying for the kill. Well, I’m damned sure, because he’s tried it once or twice.’
She looked at him, slightly startled.
‘Do you mean that? He’s tried to kill you several times?’
‘Now you see even more why I don’t want you along.’
They rode in silence for a while, heading downhill, the horses going carefully through the rocks and here and there across gradients of shail that shifted beneath their feet. From behind him Ana called: ‘You keep forgetting one thing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘He killed Lemuel.’
He turned in the saddle, rested a hand on Sally’s rump. ‘No, ma’am, I’m not forgetting that. Not for a minute.’ But he thought that every now and then she forgot it. He did not know why he felt that, but he did. Strongly. She was not what she wanted to seem. Yet he told himself that he believed she was genuine. Genuine what?
He could not answer that question. Noon found them in the basin, the temperature considerably higher. A pleasant and embracing warmth that McAllister loved. Sally, who was a warm climate lady, perked up considerably. Even the girl’s sorry nag seemed to be happier. There were insects here, thick on the wing, buzzing around their heads, annoying the horses. Tails, muscles and ears flicked. Riding side by side with the girl, McAllister for a moment forgot his mission and told himself that was a dangerous thing. He could not afford slips like that. But just for a moment he luxuriated in a dream of an unreal situation—his riding along here in the upland sunshine without a care in the world … with a lovely woman. Then he reminded himself that the thicket down there, shimmering in the sunshine, could conceal death for them both. His mind should be on the possibility of danger constantly. His quarry was going to pull something really smart next time. He had to if he was going to kill McAllister before they started on the home stretch.
I do not know whether it would be true to say that McAllister had made a science of the art of staying alive. Whatever you called it, he seemed to have brought it to a high state of perfection. You might say that when in difficulty, he became doubly aware of what went on around him. He consciously drove his mind to inspect and examine sounds and sights which would not have been so much as noticed by the average man. He would study minutely any nuance in the convers
ation and the smallest unconscious movements of those near him. And so it was with the girl during that ride. He might find her both attractive and appealing, but that did not prevent him from constantly testing her, measuring, assessing. He listened for sincerity and naturalness, for artifice and deceit. And even, if he were to fall in love with her, that would not stop the process. His instincts and his conscious thought worked tirelessly on his behalf.
Now as he rode with the girl he listened as much to the timbre of her voice as to the actual words she spoke. Occasionally he would flick a glance at her as if he thought he would catch her in a watchful and furtive movement. Those eyes might strike him as being both remarkable and beautiful, but that did not prevent him from asking himself if they belonged to a seductress.
Why, you may wonder, should she, a recently made widow, want to seduce him? There were a good many answers to that one. How did he know that she was recently widowed? He only had her word for that. She might not be Mrs Sullivan any more than he. Of one thing only he was certain and that was that she was a Mexican woman. No one could imitate that Sonoran accent. The grey eyes must have come from her Spanish forebears.
He admitted that he was entranced by her. He went so far to allow that her touch was enough to make him forget what he had decided, that this ride was no time for damn foolishness, as he put it. He even agreed that he really liked the girl as a person. But he still watched her and did not rule out as impossible that there was some connection between her and the man he followed. He had carried that suspicion in his head from the moment he first saw her.
In camp that night she said: ‘McAllister, I think you do not trust me.’ They were speaking in Spanish, which was always a pleasure to him.
McAllister’s thoughts were elsewhere. He was studying the map which he carried always in his head. Laid out before him was this basin and the mountains beyond. The trail ran almost dead straight across the basin. If you were following a man along this trail, you could without too much trouble spot where he had turned off the trail to right or left. Nobody who knew his job would attempt to lose a follower here. If he was going to circle and set up an ambush ahead he would do it in the hills to the west. If he meant to circle far back and attack from the rear (which made more sense) he would do the same. To have camped near the trail would have been asking for trouble. So McAllister had taken time and trouble to move away from the trail and to cover his tracks when he did so. He camped in deep timber far enough from the trail for the horses not to voice their alarm at anybody on it. This also meant he could light a fire without being seen and the smoke would be lost in the foliage of the trees. The last was probably not necessary in the dark, but he was playing safe.
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